September 17, 2019
“Sexy, Messy, Scary, Fun, Overwhelming, and Precarious”: A Conversation with Carley Moore
Carley Moore is a writer, mother, and teacher, and all of these roles find their way into her terrific new novel, The Not Wives (Feminist Press). The book brings together […]
August 14, 2019
The Story the Storytelling Tells: A Note on the Ramayana
Every God has his consort, his corresponding Goddess—so Brahma, the Creator-God, has Saraswati, the Goddess of arts and letters, a match made in heaven, so to speak. Shiva’s consort is […]
July 30, 2019
A Hunger and a Need: An Interview with Neil Aitken and Dao Strom, Founders of De-Canon
This post is the fourth in a months-long series that explores the topic of craft: what it is, how it has evolved, who has historically had access to it, and […]
July 24, 2019
Organic Choreography: An Interview with Jane Alison, Author of Meander, Spiral, Explode
This post is the third in a months-long series that explores the topic of craft: what it is, how it has evolved, who has historically had access to it, and […]
August 1, 2018
When Things Fall Apart: Leadership in Desperate Times
I’ve been thinking about the connection between literature, politics, and leadership because I gave a talk, “When Things Fall Apart: Leadership in Desperate Times,” in James M. Van Wyck’s terrific […]
January 29, 2018
An Interview with Rachel Lyon
In Self-Portrait With Boy, Rachel Lyon has written a powerful debut novel. Self-Portrait examines the aftermath of the moment Lu Rile takes a photograph that inadvertently captures a boy’s fatal […]
September 15, 2017
Reading Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark After Charlottesville
As someone who teaches literature post-Charlottesville (and everything else), I felt it was an important time to revisit Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination […]
August 25, 2017
The Night Charlie Chaplin and Gertrude Stein Talked Film
I just re-watched Charlie Chaplin’s film Limelight and was reminded of his relationship to Gertrude Stein. In 1934 Stein and Chaplin met at a dinner party, and both recorded their versions […]
July 14, 2017
Buckskin Cocaine
Erika Wurth’s lyrical short story collection Buckskin Cocaine, a compendium of voices from the Native American film scene, puts questions of seeing and identity at its center. “Robert Two-Stories,” for […]
May 19, 2017
Carrying Chaos Inside
This is the second installment of a series on writing and motherhood. Read part one one, and part three. Today I told my husband I wanted to find a way […]
January 8, 2015
Who Has the Loudest Voice?
All literature offends someone. To offend our fixed ideas, even our most sacred truths, is one of the ways in which writers compel us to think, to question, and to […]
December 2, 2013
Why Teach Literature Now?
Last week, I attended a session called “Another University is Possible–Right?” at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association in Washington, D.C. Since then, I’ve been ruminating on how […]